Supply Teachers Conference – 17th September ’16 @ NEC Birmingham

I arrived to this conference with a simple question:

Where is all the work at?

I felt like Yosser Hughes from the ‘Boys with the blackstuff’ with the phrase ‘gis us a job’

 

Having not worked since Mid July I had found myself unemployed for 2 months, and the Supply Agencies advising me it was slow, ‘the supply market’. My feelings were quite different, the supply teachers market, had been slower than an asthmatic snail after a particularly bad asthma attack!

 

The pre-conference meal on the Friday night was (as always) a great opportunity to network & socialize with colleagues, who were in the main of the same opinion, it was very quiet and there was little work to be had. It seemed not to be a regional thing but more of a national picture of Schools/Academies running on a ‘lean’ staffing level and leaving supply staff bookings to the last moment. Added to which a number of colleagues added that they were increasingly being asked to take Teaching Assistant rates of £75 per day and still act as a classroom teacher.

Sadly one other point from the pre-conference meal was that there was no guest speaker, as per other special interest groups, which made myself & others feel that this conference was not as well organized and supported as other special interest conferences are ( note I have raised this question and await a reply from the Conferences team)

During the meal we were informed of the various training and workshops that were being run tomorrow and that with over 300 people attending members we would need to register for these promptly at 9 am tomorrow morning, with the conference commencing at 10 am.

The following morning as I strolled into reception, I found what can only be described at the longest registration line I have ever seen,

 

it totally blocked up the hotel lobby and whilst the staff manning the registration desks were doing their very best they were swamped. However when you consider some of the workshops such as ‘Safeguarding’ only had places for 20 people and with over 300 people attending, this was not that surprising.

Once I found myself in the main hall for the conference, another issue seemed to surface, that there were not enough tables and chairs for the members attending, and this caused the morning key note session by Patrick Roache to be delayed, which in turn delayed the open mic. question and answer session, that follows this and the interactive poll session as well.

Needless to say some tempers frayed and the general feeling was of a less then well-organized event as members were not able to fully express their views/feelings.

I was able to raise a question during the open mic. q&a and it was again to ask the Union to facilitate more training at weekends and during term holidays so Supply Teachers will not lose out if accessing Union training opportunities. Sadly Patrick Roache had no time to respond to this and other questions.

After a mid morning coffee I spoke with colleagues who advised me some external training providers for the Safeguarding workshop did not turn up, so a large number of people were milling around with nothing to do until lunch time, as the other workshop were full up. Not the Unions fault but this only added to the frustrations of the day.

The picture was repeated after lunch, so a number of memebrs informally collected together and one postitive point was my joining a WhatsApp group who has been a support over the last 4 to 5 weeks and helped me know I am not alone and isolated but others are expereincing the same and we all offer support to each other.

Many thanks for my colleague who set this up.

So if this was an Ofsted report, it would read:

And driving home with the radio on I heard this song – how irnoic that a song released in Thatchers Britian of the 80’s still resonates.

Post note – I have still yet to get any work!!!!